Friends,
What can you really do with a gate signal besides starting and stopping sequencers, firing envelopes and resetting an LFO?
There has been discussion about the dangers of possibly summing the voltages if you try to multiply an S-trig signal on old Moogs. Do you run this same risk multiplying the gate outputs from the Voyager?
Eric
Summing S-triggers causing problems?
Well, S-trigger are just a closed contact. Not a voltage. And if there is no S-trig switched on, there is no current flowing. So why should “summing” S-triggers cause problems?
Gates are a voltage. 0 V for of. about 5 V for on.
If you attenuate the gate, you can use it as a digital modulation signal. Albeit, fairly limited in application. I have used it to push up the sustain amount during the key down and when released the envelope drops to the panel set point and then followed the release setting. (For long release sounds, obviously. It added another element to the envelope. ADS1S2R.
It can also be used to some effect to control panning. Play around. Maybe Moog should add a DVM to their CP-251 so you can see the voltages added up! I use the 2nd trace of my Oscilliscope for that. If the solid line ever climbs to the 1st grid above center, I know it’s too much. I have it scaled for +10V at the center.
Oh yeah, I was doing that on a semi modular system, I haven’t tried it with the Vger.
Do you have a Voyager and a 351?
Here is a fun use of a gate signal
Patch KBD GATE to ATTENUATOR IN
Patch ATTENUATOR OUT to Voyager PITCH IN
Hold down a key on your favorite patch that has some release time
Try ‘Minimoog 70’s’ or Magic Man’. and use the attenuator to tune the note.
EG: Press d and tune f# using the attenuator knob.
Play a simple I III IV arppegio up and down staccato.
Try other patterns and tunings. You can also use the ATTENUATOR on a CP-252 to reverse the gate signal so it goes high when you release the key instead of low pitch.
THanks for joining in on this guys.
I remember something about trying to multiply a S-trig. I believe that CZ RIder and Kevin were discusing multiplying the signals could short something out. I very well may have misunderstood something.
Ill definately try the patches…I do have a Vger and VX.
One thing that I like to do sometimes is I like to use the touchpad gate to trigger a sample and hold from the cp to the freq. So if I get wacky with my finger I can get some S&H for every time I touch the touchpad.
Eric
While an S-trig IN can be a switch, it, like an S-trig out, may have some current on it.
There are often pull-up resistors that place some voltages on these connections or some current by way of the transistor doing the switching.
Theoretically they’re a switch closure, but electrically they can be at logic levels or higher.
Some of the old Moog modular keyboards actually put out S trigs by way of a relay, an electrically operated switch.
But almost everything afterward used transistor logic.
So there’s limits to how one can mult them.
Too many connected together and all those pull-up resistors add the current up.
Another circuit might not be able to ground it out or could draw enough current to cause damage.
I prefer to mod 911 envs for V-trigs so they can be easily triggered from more common sources, the 960 sequencer or a 921 vco.
Another use for gates are via a gate sequencer and mixer.
By connecting the gate outputs into a mixer (dc coupled), one can produce CV sequences out the mixer.
Several synths offer such modules because they’re cheap to make and can use an existing mixer to form a sequencer.
By multing the gates and using additional mixers, more rows can be added.
Interesting. I need to bookmark that lol.